The Movies

Watched Oblivion last night. My expectation wasn't high and still, it couldn't engage me emotionally. The plot felt simple and predictable - and Morgan Freeman presence felt rather short. I only liked Victoria's character. Tom Cruise was average as he almost always is.

Currently I am watching A Prophet (2009). Still watching since it's almost 3 hours long. Have watched about 1 hour of it. It's about a young Arab man who is sent to a French prison for assaulting police officers, where he slowly rises to the top. It's a classic French prison thriller so not for everyone. Tahar Rahim is quite excellent in the main role.

Anyway, watched a couple of great movies - The Descendants and Star Trek: The Voyage Home. The former was yet another depressing movie for me but definitely not gruesome.

The Voyage Home was very entertaining and perhaps the funniest Star Trek movie I've seen so far. An Alien probe is destroying everything on its way and is now headed for the planet Earth; therefore, must be stopped before it ends every existence out there. Captain James T. Kirk of the 23rd century Starship Enterprise, needs to go back in time - to the mid-80s to be specific - to get a couple of humpback whales to communicate with this alien probe, as their language pre-dates human origin and they can only speak the same language as the humpback whales. Once they land on earth, Captain Kirk warns, "we are going back to a very primitive culture so be careful everyone." And sure enough once they land in San Francisco, they encounter a series of deep profanity and personal insults. I got a serious kick out of it because it did show how primitive beings we still are.

Did you know what was more depressing? I watched the Descendants after I watched The Voyage Home and in the Descendant movie, the daughters, 17 and 6, swore like a sailor in front of their father, who's just learning that he's loving wife of all these years were unhappy and was cheating on him. And he couldn't talk about it because she was in coma. Now he didn't know what to do.

After watching that, I had even a scarier thought - what if we were to live forever? Just the thought makes me want commit suicide right away. The type of world we live in right now, no one in their right mind would want to live here forever. And if they still do, then should really be only ones.

I never get tired of watching Predator. It's an out and out sci-fi action moive and am more into sci-fi intellectual stuff, but this one wins me each time. I love how this reviewer describes the movie the best, "What makes it so unique is that the story starts off as a simple but exhilarating rescue mission; but then it suddenly switches gears and becomes a fight for survival for everyone involved. The genius of that!"

I've seen Predators and I agree that's pretty decent sequal however I can watch Predator over and over again without getting bored and that's where the beauty lies with this one.

I'll be watching Start Treck on Sunday as it's our long weekend. Can't wait to see Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan. Such a cool cast in this one. Hope the story is worth it. The last one was a bit too simple for me, but still, I liked it.

Saw Hansel & Gretel: Witchhunters last night, not too bad if you disengage your brain for 90 minutes and like the idea of Jeremy Renner using a medievel machine gun.

Was confused between Oz- The Great and Powerful and Hansel and Gretel. Didnt know which one to watch. Chose Oz finally. A mediocre movie. A little boring in the middle. I was kinda waiting for the movie to get over.

I've seen session 9, very strange movie, quite slow for me but still interesting, i like my horror to be a bit more engaging like Insidious for example.

Saw Hansel & Gretel: Witchhunters last night, not too bad if you disengage your brain for 90 minutes and like the idea of Jeremy Renner using a medievel machine gun.

Was it very strange for you? It wasn't so much for me as I've seen some really strange movies - The Stalker (Russian version) for instance, couldn't be stranger. And there's many more. In this movie however, I knew what was going on though it wasn't very easy subject to understand and the direction kept it unclear throughout the movie. I am perfectly fine with slow movies and in fact, I adore it as I like it how a good plot slowly builds up the tension and takes a supreme height towards the end.

I thought it was a very good movie given the premise and atmosphere but I still had a couple of problems - first of all, I thought Gordon's relationship problems were never told in the true sense, so I could never relate to his problems in order to feel sorry for him; second, there was no detail between the possessor and the possessed, so it pretty much left with a lot to be desired. The entity's true intention was never clear nor was it showed as to how it influences a human being. It does say towards the end it seeks, "wounded and weak" but that wasn't good enough for me. Still, I thought it was very intelligently done and was never purposely overblown. It's definitely not your typical mainstream horror flick. I don't care about those but it did end slightly abruptly.

I remember a movie where the drive to the airport alone was 15 minutes long. Talk about slow but the movie was so great that along with the protagonist, you too tend to think and get lost in your thoughts as it was that thought provoking.